Injection molded totes are designed to hold parts or products for shipment and/or storage. One exemplary use is in the automobile manufacturing industry. For example, the injection molded tote may be used several times for transporting parts between a part supplier and an automobile or other product assembly plant.
Injection molded totes have a finite usable life. When the injection molded tote becomes damaged and is no longer useful, the tote is either discarded or ground up as a means of recycling the plastic. Alternatively, the injection molded tote may become obsolete or unwanted if the parts for which the tote is designed are discontinued and the injection molded tote does not adequately fit another part.
Injection molded totes are made in a limited number of sizes or footprints, and may be color coded to indicate different sizes. The sizes are limited so they fit in a desired manner inside a standard pallet footprint for shipping purposes, which is commonly 48 inches by 45 inches. Therefore, some popular footprints or sizes for injection molded totes are: 24 inches by 22 inches (four totes per layer arranged 2×2) and 24 inches by 15 inches (six totes per layer arranged 3×2), among others. Because these sizes are finite, finding a used injection molded tote of a suitable size and color may be difficult.
Injection molded totes are made in a limited number of heights so that when loaded and stacked, the height of the pallet load is between 48 and 52 inches or close. For example, one common load is 11 inch tall injection molded totes stacked four high. Injection molded tote tooling is very expensive. In addition, making such tooling for tall injection molded totes (say 23 inches) is difficult.
It is known to take two standard sized injection molded totes of the same footprint (length×width), but of different heights, cut them and weld them together to create a custom sized height. One difficulty with using this method to create an injection molded tote of a custom height is that the resulting tote is relatively heavy, and therefore, costly to transport when compared to a tote of the same height manufactured in accordance with the present invention.
What is needed in the art is a method of manufacturing a custom sized plastic tote from one or more unwanted, obsolete, or damaged injection molded totes. The resulting tote is lighter and, therefore, cheaper and easier to transport than known cut and welded injection molded totes.